


Vulcans should be blue-blooded space hobbits

by TomFooleryPrime



Series: Musings and Analysis of the Star Trek Fandom [3]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Essay, Gen, Meta, Non-fic, Space Hobbits, Vulcan physiology, Vulcans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 14:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11292978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TomFooleryPrime/pseuds/TomFooleryPrime
Summary: So much of the canon surrounding Vulcan physiology just doesn't make sense. A look at the Vulcan body from a biochemical and evolutionary perspective.Sometimes I ramble ontumblr. Someone recommended posting some of my essays here.





	Vulcans should be blue-blooded space hobbits

_Vulcans_. Those pointy-eared bastards. Those green-blooded hobgoblins. Those logical, lanky nerds. They’re physically superior to humans in nearly every way. They’re three times stronger than us, they can easily go days without food or sleep, they’re telepathic, they possess highly efficient respiratory systems, and can probably hear a flea fart. Oh, and there’s that whole green blood thing.

> _That’s one helluva shiner you’ve got there, kid Spock._

A lot of the “facts” about the Vulcan body are really perpetuated fanon, but this is a case where the fanon sometimes makes more sense than canon and most definitely a case where canon doesn’t align with science. From an evolutionary and biochemical perspective, very little about Vulcan anatomy and physiology makes any sense.

Let’s start with that famous copper-based green blood. It should actually be blue. Humans and most vertebrates use hemoglobin to transport oxygen to tissues throughout the body. Hemoglobin is a protein that contains iron, and it’s because of the oxidation state of iron that our blood appears red when we bleed. I’ve often heard claims that deoxygenated blood is blue and that’s why veins are blue, but file that one under “lies my teacher told me,” because oxygen-deprived blood is actually dark red in color. Veins only look blue on individuals with pale skin because of the different wavelengths of light penetrating the skin to illuminate the veins. I digress.

Vulcan blood should be blue. We actually have animals right here on planet Earth who have a protein called hemocyanin rather than hemoglobin. Most mollusks and arthropods use hemocyanin, as do giant octopuses and horseshoe crabs. 

> _This is a horseshoe crab bleeding its magical blue blood. Horseshoe crabs and their ilk might actually be aliens anyway. No one knows._

Without diving into the weeds of the biochemistry involved, a key difference between hemoglobin and hemocyanin is that hemocyanin uses copper instead of oxygen. Canon tells us that Vulcans have copper based blood. Hemocyanin in its deoxygenated form is colorless, but the Cu(II) oxygenated form is blue. Sure, the Vulcan blood component that carries oxygen could have evolved to be vastly different than anything we see on Earth (in fact, we’d _expect_ that, because Vulcan is nothing like Earth) but that still wouldn’t explain the green color. No matter how we slice it, any conceivable copper-based blood system would be blue and there’s no way it could magically evolve to be green unless chemistry and physics don’t apply. 

Now that we’ve accepted that Vulcan blood is the wrong color, we should explore why a copper based system is a terrible idea in the first place. Vulcan is described as being a hot planet with a higher gravity and thinner atmosphere than Earth. Because of something called cooperative binding, hemocyanins tend to be about one-fourth as efficient as hemoglobin at transporting oxygen. On a hot planet with a thin atmosphere, you would want a system that is _more_ efficient at transporting oxygen, not _less_. Most species on Earth that use hemocyanin to stay alive live in cold environments with low oxygen pressure.

Now let’s talk about Vulcan bodies more generally. As I’ve already mentioned, the planet Vulcan purportedly has a gravity much higher than that of Earth. What would _that_ be like? If it were twice the gravity of our planet (2G), imagine suddenly weighing twice what you do now. TLC’s _My 600-lb Life_ would suddenly become _My 1,200-lb Life_. Enter one of the great hand-waves of science fiction. Species generally can’t just jump into wildly different conditions and thrive and such a change in gravity would have devastating consequences to your circulatory system. But aside from that, what should a species that evolved on Vulcan look like?

Probably nothing like the tall, thin, regal Vulcans we’re used to seeing. They would probably have a higher metabolism and very little body fat due to the planet’s high temperatures. They would certainly be strong compared to species that evolved on planets with lighter gravity, but they would also have much denser bones, thicker muscles, and shorter statures. 

> _“As seen on TV” is usually too good to be true anyway._

Vulcans are supposed to be warm-blooded placental mammals (if anyone has a canon source about Vulcans hatching their offspring from eggs, I’d love to hear it). Given the hot, dry conditions of Vulcan, we’d expect them to follow similar patterns to what we see in desert mammals on Earth. Even with some pretty swanky adaptations, many desert mammals are forced to ride out the hottest parts of the day in caves or underground burrows and there’s no reason to believe Vulcans would be much different. So Vulcans would probably be nocturnal.

One interesting fact about jackrabbits is that their ears pull double duty. They’re not only useful for increasing auditory acuity, but they’re full of blood vessels and the larger surface area helps release heat. Perhaps there’s some science to those pointy Vulcan ears after all, though to be fair, you’d think they’d probably have to be a whole lot pointier to have much effect.

> _Practically cousins._

Vulcan is also allegedly a dry planet, which would make water conservation a serious issue. Vulcans appear to have generally hairless bodies, but even so, they would probably sweat very little or not at all if the heat really is as extreme as they say. They would probably have incredible digestive systems and kidneys adapted to stretch every water molecule as far as it would go, and would probably expel dry air when exhaling, as a great amount of water is lost through breathing. 

Which brings me to the most contentious point of Vulcan physiology (for fans anyway). Is the average Vulcan body temperature higher or lower than that of a human? It’s actually hard to say. 91°F (~32.8°C) gets tossed around a lot because it appears in the _Starfleet Medical Reference Manual,_ which was published in 1977. There actually are _some_ mammals that have body temperatures that hover around that mark, but there sure aren’t many. Given the hot, arid climate of Vulcan, it’s far more likely they’d be warmer and therefore great to snuggle next to on a chilly night. 

> _Eat your heart out, lovers and fanfic lovers alike._

So yeah. _Vulcans_. They should probably look a lot less like space elves and a lot more like space hobbits. Nocturnal, squat, space hobbits with long ears and blue blood.


End file.
